Shaun

Shaun

Shaun was a regular at the New Inn around the time Dog and I where drinking in there about the age of seventeen. Shaun was probably in his mid twenties to late twenties, he often wore a light coloured shirt, jeans and shoes and spiked his hair slightly. He was not built particularly well and looked a little on the skinny side but for all purposes he looked like Mr Normal. He had a drinking partner called, Colin, who looked older due to his hair loss and had a ruff voice.

Being regulars like Dog and I, they dropped in and sometimes joined us at our table with the girls, Liz and her friends.

There are a number of instances where Shaun proved to be a little off the beat and track.

In one memory, we are all sitting at the bar of the lounge in the corner enjoying a laugh. Shaun returned from the bar, placed his pint on the table and took his seat to my left. He still had his change in his hand and sitting down preceded to awkwardly stuff the coins into his pocket, oblivious in conversation. From his pocket a handful of change dropped to the carpet.

“Shaun, you dropped some money”, I said, pointing to the scattered silver and bronze coins near his chair.

“Cheers”, he reached down and gathered up the coins, ”Here have it”.

“Why?”

“I respect your honestly some people would have just had it themselves and not said anything”.

“Naa I cant do that..”, I protested and before I could say anything else he dumped the handful of change in my hand assured me again it was okay and I was “sound” before he went back to his conversation.

I counted the change, which amounted to a couple of quid almost enough for a pint. Not entirely sure whether Shaun was the type of person I wanted some respect from as beneath his eyes something lurked something which showed an edge of its self on another occasion.

The second memory was at the time Dog was working behind the bar at the New Inn, we would both stop behind for lockins along with trusted locals. At two in the morning, Karen one of the barmaids who worked behind the bar suggested we all go for a curry, since she knew the owner of a curry house who was open until the early hours of the morning.

Shaun was on his own and thus tagged along with us. I sat in the restaurant looking at a menu which insisted on moving like a badly tuned television besides which when I could focus, I had no idea what curry was what. I followed Karen and went for a chicken Balti knowing Dog would probably have a curry which was hotter than the sun.

The curry arrived and after a few spoonfuls I did not feel well but in drunken style, I carried on with the beer munchies in the driving seat. Then I knew I was going to be sick.
I had no idea where the toilets where in the restaurant and up against a stomach which was heading north, I decided to exit out the front, down the road slightly out of the view of the restaurant window.

A pause in what felt as good as place as any and it was chutney a go go, I redecorated the pavement. It was light outside with morning edging in although it was raining lightly and I had no coat. I could not have cared if Hurricane Harry was due to hit, the retching had given me a bit of light relief but I still did not feel well. I was not going back just yet.

Shaun appeared and just as he said something, I went to wretch but it was a false start.

“You wanna make yourself sick”, said Shaun then promptly demonstrated the technique by shoving two fingers down his throat before retching and spitting out the after taste of bile into the road. “Easy”.

You never quite knew with Shaun how drunk he was or whether he was drunk at all. It did not show very well if he was. A while after his vomit inducing demonstration technique, Dog and I were sitting in the New Inn at the tables in the lounge and Shaun joined us, he was on his own and sober to the eye having not long arrived.

How the conversation got round to it, I do not remember but somewhere along the lines the thin scars at the top of my arms, just beneath the short sleeve got drawn into the conversation.

“That’s just attention seeking, self hurt, anyone can do that”, said Shaun not inclined to argue against the prejudice I said no more.

Shaun defended his position, ”Here I’ll prove it”. He took an empty pint glass off our table and bit into the glass. It shattered into pieces and he spat them back into the now unusable pint glass accompanied by droplets of blood.

That was the end of that conversation. The topic moved on.

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